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volitaunt) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2018-04-22 12:58 pm
volitaunt) wrote in riverviewlogs2018-04-22 12:58 pm
volitaunt) wrote in riverviewlogs2018-04-22 12:58 pm
no subject
You don't need an excuse to be in here.
[ He sits down at the controls, trying not to look at John, ending up staring at the console in front of him instead without touching a single switch. ]
I sleep in my mom's ship sometimes.
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[Ships and flying. Those are safe topics. They're on the shuttle team. It's just shoptalk between aircrew. The fact that he's alone in a room with Poe Dameron for the first time since Poe broke up with him means nothing. He's fine.
This is fine.
It's easier when he doesn't look at Poe. John tries to focus on his fake work, only to realize he's going the wrong way. He fumbles the wrench in the other direction.
His life is falling apart, but he's not about to take the shuttle with him.]
She was looking good last time I checked.
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[ Poe steals just a glance John's way, watches him wrestle with the wrench, and almost offers to help. The offer gets stuck in his throat--it's a makework task, for one thing. It's a distraction. And John probably doesn't want Poe anywhere near him. ]
A lot of what I've been able to do so far is cosmetic.
[ Not that he's buffing out familiar dings and scratches. Those are staying right where they are, wherever he can manage it. ]
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[John's opinion means nothing in the scheme of things. He knows that. It's Poe's ship, his mother's legacy, and other than helping Poe dig it out of the dirt, John doesn't have stakes in it. He doesn't have any stakes in Poe, either.
He tightens up the bolt with a few quick twists and moves onto the next. Look at him, being productive. He's totally working. A real professional.]
Is she going to fly, or is that still up in the air? No pun intended.
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It's only when John asks that particular question that Poe starts to light up, his familiar fire rising to the surface.]
She's going to fly. Bee has the schematics for every ship from now back to the Empire. If we have to draw design elements from half a fleet, she's going to fly again.
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[John tightens the next bolt with a crooked smile. It's the first time he's smiled in a while. For a moment, he forgets about the way it felt when Poe came into his office and broke his heart in less than five minutes.
It's good that Poe's doing this. For himself. For his mother. He can not love Poe and still think that, can't he? As a comrade. Maybe eventually as a friend.
They were never friends. Not really. Somehow they'd skipped that part. Went straight from copilots to fuck-buddies. Except they'd never really been buddies, either. No matter what John told himself.
He'd fallen for Poe the first night they spent together.]
I'd like to see her in action. You talked a lot of game about those ships.
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[ He looks over at John for the first time, the curve of his back as he bends over the bolts, the way his hair still sticks up all over. There never seems to be anything John can do about that, or nothing he cares to do, anyway. Poe's hands itch he wants to run his hands through that hair so badly, but he...
Well, he fucked that up, didn't he? He ruined it, and why? Because he was a coward. Because he was a coward when it mattered most. ]
You could take her up, if you wanted. After... [ He pauses. Would John even want Poe to teach him? ] You could learn to fly her.
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John hadn't assumed Poe would take him on the maiden voyage, but... he'd hoped to be there in that moment. He wanted to see Poe's face as he flew his mother's ship, and to be part of something so important to him. So beautiful.
It was stupid. He knows that now. A giant crossing of boundaries he had been too blind to notice were there. They were on different pages from day one. Sometimes John wonders if they were even reading the same book.]
Yeah, sure. I'd like that.
[John would like that, but he doesn't think it's going to happen.]
Give me a shout when you've got her going.
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It's strange to think that John would brush off an invitation to fly a foreign ship. It hurts, too, in a way, even though it shouldn't. ]
Yeah. Yeah, I will.
[ He turns his attention back to the console, actually doing the systems check, trying not to be too conscious of John's presence behind him. Not too distracted.
It doesn't work particularly well. ]
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[John's having as much luck as Poe is. He can't ignore the other man in his space. Even though they aren't touching, he can feel his temperature and presence. The air seems to shift with his movement.
Hell, he can smell Poe's hair somehow. Or maybe that's just his imagination. Wishful thinking. The scent comes to him at night when he's lonely, because his bed still smells like Poe no matter how many times he washes his sheets, or people he brings home. No one can fill the emptiness Poe used to fill in John's bed and body.
John drops a bolt onto the floor. It bounces between them.]
Behind you.
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But it's there: sweat and shampoo and that particular something that seems to belong to one person alone. Poe isn't paying attention to what he's doing. He's stopped half-way through the check, staring at the console, memories playing out in his head, every touch, every kiss, every time John made him laugh.
John made him laugh. He might miss that most of all.
The ping of the bolt falling snaps him out of it. Poe looks around, spots it, and kneels to pick it up. ]
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Ow! I meant behind you as in, I was going for it, behind you-
[It doesn't really hurt, but now that they're face to face again, so much close than they were before, John can't help but notice Poe's face.]
You get into another scrap with Kylo?
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It's hard enough to hit the brakes on that, let alone come up with a lie. ]
Bar fight.
[ Which doesn't explain why he has bruises on bruises, fading injuries and fresh ones. From the shuttle door comes a derisive chirp, and BB-8 peers in around the corner and rattles off a series of beeps that tells John exactly what Poe has been doing.
Poe is very, very glad John doesn't understand more than a few words of binary. ]
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[John raises an eyebrow, his eyes flicking over Poe's scraped cheek, split lip, and otherwise black and blue skin in various stages of healing. Some of the bruises are newer than others.
He doesn't need to understand binary to know BB-8 is calling Poe out. He knows that particular tone of beep.]
Must've been some bar fight. How many days did it last?
[Not that John can talk. He's been getting into his own trouble. There's a bruise on the back of his neck, just below his collar. Which he's been keeping popped on the job. Every once in a while, though, there's a hint of purple below his nape.]
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It's fine.
[ Not I'm fine, because that seems like a stupid thing to say in the moment. BB-8 whistle-shrieks that it is not fine and he's fed up. Poe glares at him. ]
Have you been spying this whole time?
[ The electronic equivalent of a raspberry. ]
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[John rolls his eyes at the little droid. Who he's really, very fond of, even if he'll never admit it. John has all sorts of nicknames for BB-8. None of them nice. That's how you know John likes him. He's not a pet person himself, but there's something about seeing Poe and BB-8 together that makes him smile.
A boy and his droid. They're cute. That's all there is to it.]
You should ask Carson to take a look at that. The one near your eye looks bad. You don't want that going septic.
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Poe watches, and then looks away again. ]
I'll clean it up when I get off-shift.
[ He doesn't want anyone with medical expertise to look at him. He doesn't want to get himself admitted, doesn't want to answer the questions that would come up about what he's doing and why. There are too many whys. He's losing track of them all.
BB-8 makes a worried noise, and now Poe can't look at the droid either. ]
It's nothing, Bee.
[ Neither one of them are stupid enough to buy that. Poe hunts for a change of topic, any kind of topic, and lands on John's popped collar. He's noticed--he notices John whenever they pass each other, whenever they're in the same room. ]
New fashion statement?
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[John tries not to notice Poe, but even working opposing shifts he haunts John's peripherals like a ghost. There's no amount of airtime, booze, or sex that can exorcise him.
His hands go to the back of his collar, just to make sure it hasn't folded down. It's none of Poe's business, really. He's the one who cut John loose. He's the one who didn't want to kiss him. Fuck him. Hold him. Poe looked at John and said no. Weighed his options and decided against him. Against them.
It kills John to think of what Poe was thinking when he invited him on that vacation, and sent him all those stupid texts. Photos, too. Which he can only hope Poe deleted. Then there was calling him for days after the fact, instead of taking the fucking hint when he didn't pick up.
Even worse is trying analyze when it was that things went wrong. What he did, specifically, to change Poe's mind. Was there any one thing, or a thousand little things? Was it always there, in the back of Poe's mind? He knows Poe thinks asking him out was a mistake, he'd said that much.
Was he already over John when they were having sex for the last time? He'd been really loud that night, made stupid faces and sounds. Embarrassed himself. Had Poe been cringing on the inside, embarrassed for him? Turned off? If there was a button that would erase every image of him from Poe's mind, John would push it.
He hates that they have to stand in this place together, making small-talk, knowing that Poe has seen more of him than he's ever wanted to show to anyone. How can he even take John seriously anymore?
John's lost in his thoughts until BB-8 bumps into his shin again. He glares down at the droid, tempted to kick him out the shuttle door like a goddamn soccer ball. He doesn't. His issues are his problems. Not Bee's. Not Poe's. Not anymore.
He tries to drag his thought process back into the present, onto the task and situation at hand. John needs to move on. It's even sadder if he doesn't.]
You better fix that shiner, or I'll rat on you to medical. Don't think I won't.
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[ There's something wrong here, he knows there's something wrong, because he knows this man. He's seen him naked, figuratively and literally, curled against him in the dark and listened to his breathing in the night. He knows this man, knows his beautiful vulnerability and his stubbornness and how hard he tries to be okay in front of--
In front of everyone else.
Except Poe is everyone else now. He made himself everyone else. He betrayed John, he strung him along and then ran away when John became part of the terrifying equation that added up to being stuck, being part of Riverview for the foreseeable future, trapped away from his cause. Even now, the thought of that reality makes his muscles tighten, his bruises ache, his knuckles itch with the desire to pound out his feelings into another human being.
He did this. He gets to suffer for it. He gets to see John in pain and do nothing, because he has no right to do anything. John, who was everything Poe could have wished for in a partner. John, with his beautiful eyes and his charming ears and that pitchy voice that Poe could listen to forever. John, was there for him when even Leia wasn't, whose selflessness seems bottomless, who set him free the only way anyone here has. ]
I will. [ Quietly, reluctantly. ] Do.... Are you.... You're taking care of yourself, right?
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[He's not getting into bar brawls, if that's what Poe means. If Poe's talking about something else, such as the state of John's neck, and other parts of him that are more hidden, or the fact he's more often hungover than not... No comment. What could John say to explain the hand-shaped bruises on his hips and thighs, or the fact he's always sore inside?
"Nothing to worry about. Just a little rough-trade between two consenting adults. Rough because if they don't fuck me hard enough, if it doesn't hurt, I start thinking of you. The way you tasted, looked, and felt. How bad I miss you, and how empty my life feels without you. Because you left a hole in my heart, and there's no one else who can fill it. Believe me, I've tried."
John smiles, one hand braced on the roof of the shuttle.]
Don't worry about me. Worry about that eye and getting your mom's ship off the ground.
I can take care of myself.
[But that's the problem with the way things are, isn't it? Poe's seen too much. Enough to know John can't. Beneath the smile, the rank, and the uniform, John's just a fucked up man who doesn't know how to be anything but alone.]
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John has people, Poe needs to remember that. He needs to remember that, even if he's going to spend the next week lying in bed staring at the ceiling worrying about what John is doing, worried about what John is thinking, worrying about John.
The man probably wants nothing to do with him, and here they are. Making small talk and dancing around the fact that both of them know the other isn't okay. ]
Yeah, sure.
[ Delivered without sarcasm. In the same casual tone that John used before, talking about the ship. BB-8 rolls back and forth, fussing in his quiet way. Sometimes Poe thinks the droid is like a piece of his conscience, they've been together so long. ]
If you need anything....
[ If you need anything, you'll hide it. If you need anything, I'm the last person in the world you'd ask. ]